VOICE of cricket Jonathan Agnew once offered to accompany his wife’s terminally ill ex-husband to a Swiss assisted suicide clinic, it emerged today.

Mr Agnew revealed he had the conversation with Brian Dodds, the former husband of his second wife Emma, in which he offered to travel to the infamous Dignitas clinic in Zurich.

Mr Dodds, who had two children with Mrs Agnew, died in 2005 after a two-year battle with the motor neurone disease for which there is no cure.

Mr Agnew, 53, said: “When (Brian) was first diagnosed, I always thought it was one of the conversations that had to be had.

“I said to him, ‘if ever you decide that’s what you want to do, I would take you.’ If he wanted help in getting to Dignitas I would take him.’

Mr Agnew, who fronts the BBC’s Test Match Special, married his second wife Emma in 1996.

The couple felt Mr Dodds should continue to have a close relationship with his children Charlotte, 23, and Thomas, 19, so regularly shared Sunday lunches and even holidayed together.

Aiding or encouraging a suicide is illegal in England and Wales under the 1961 Suicide Act and is punishable by up to 14 years’ imprisonment.

But CPS guidelines published in 2010 made it clear that relatives would not be charged if they acted out of compassion to help a terminally ill person end their suffering.

Mr Agnew - affectionately known the world over as “Aggers” - said he believed someone who was clearly suffering should be able to choose to die if that was what they wanted.

The former Leicestershire and England cricketer said that although it should be up to individuals to decide their own fate, he wanted Mr Dodds, whose condition was deteriorating, to know he was on hand to assist.

Mr Agnew said he believed someone who was clearly suffering should be able to choose to die

It’s up to the individual. Until you’re in that situation yourself I think your views are irrelevant

Jonathan Agnew

Motor neurone disease is a rare condition in which parts of the nervous system become damaged, causing progressive weakness, usually with muscle wasting. It causes increasingly debilitating disability and, eventually, death.

Former South Africa scrum half Joost van der Westhuizen, 42, widely regarded as one of the finest players the world has seen, was recently diagnosed with the condition which has left him on his “deathbed”.

Mr Agnew said: “It’s up to the individual. Until you’re in that situation yourself I think your views are irrelevant.

“Maybe you do look at things in an entirely different way when you’re in the position of having to make a decision. It’s not black and white at all.”

Official statistics revealed that police passed the Crown Prosecution Service 44 files on assisted suicides and cases of euthanasia – where a doctor administers the fatal dose – between 2009 and 2011.

By October 2012, the total had reached 66, including deaths in England and Wales as well as abroad. Of these, prosecutors chose not to proceed with 45, nine were withdrawn and 12 were still being looked into.

Earlier this year Mr Agnew revealed how the break down of his relationship with his daughters following the end of his first marriage made him want to stand up for fathers in broken families.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs how he felt sidelined when he separated from his wife Beverley in 1993 after a decade of marriage and struggled to maintain a relationship with his daughters Jennifer, now 27, and Rebecca, 24.